Views of American Female Identity in the Sixties and Seventies

In the sixties and seventies, a feminist movement emerged in the U.S. that challenged women's status in the family and in the workforce. Betty Friedan was the voice of those voiceless women whose life was limited to nursing babies, socializing children and doing housework. She did not agree, however, with radical feminists whom she urged not to fight against men and not to go too far in their claims for equality. Social scientists and women novelists offer different views for understanding the family. Sociologists believe women have to leave the work world to men in order to maintain family stability. Women novelists think differently and create women in search of self-esteem and identity through economic independence and mental health